A knyght ther was, and that a worthy man, That fro the tyme that he first bigan To riden out, he loved chivalrie, Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie. Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre, And therto hadde he riden, no man ferre, As wel in Cristendom as in Hethenesse, And evere honoured for his worthynesse.... And though that he were worthy, he was wys, And of his port as meeke as is a mayde; He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde In al his lyf unto no maner wight; He was a verray parfit gentil knyght.

I remember when Jeff wrote that, Mom. We were sitting around the Tabard in Southwark, drinking ale and telling lies when Jeff says to me, "In all seriousness, I'm going to put you into my new poems about pilgrims to Canterbury. I'll call you a knight, for you embody all of the good knights are supposed to have and none of the vices to which they are prone."

We were away for 3 1/2 days to Tucson to look at U of A, where he wants to study Computer Science. Tier 1 school, the best of two full rides offered. I realized that both coming and going we changed planes in Albuquerque, home of UNM, the other offer, and if I'd been thinking I'd have taken a few hours in town to let him visit that campus also. Not nearly so good, but still, a look would be useful. We get on ABQ to Dallas plane, I am in window seat ("Mom, you sit there, it doesn't recline,") he's in middle, a woman my age with interesting computer book sits beside him. We talk.

Turns out, she is chair of the UNM Computer Science Deptartment headed to a meeting. Really.

We quickly realized this unique conversational opportunity, she with a potential student, one of those cream of the crop ones they all want, and it was a great opportunity for him to get the full-wattage discussion and attention of a professor who would love to have him in her classes.

Want to know what else is serendipitous? We both grew up on Lake Whatcom in Washington. She was on the north east side, as far down that side of the lake as you could drive, and I lived on the south east side, at the end of the road there. No road all around the lake because the mountain on that side was too steep, there was a railroad trestle and we were never allowed to walk on it. Small world!

YAYYYYYYYYYY!!! STILLY'S BACK IN TEXAS!!!

Hmmm...echo answereth not. Mom must be out making wild whoopee again. Tsk, tsk, at her age she should be setting a good example by sitting in a rocking chair knitting socks for soldiers or something and sipping herbal tea, not carousing in some dingy dive like that notorious bar on the docks in San Diego or the Legion Hovel or someplace.

I have your list ready as requested sir. It will be shipped to you when the postage fees--about 7,724 pounds by standard postal rates, first-class--and a nominal fee for costs of copying and handling--are received.

I simply asked "What if it's your left arm that's missing?" Are you implying that guitars can only be played one-handed if the left hand is used? Ignore the other parts of my question -- you are obviously discriminating against those who have lost the use of their left hand and arm! Guitars are then, ipso facto, discriminatory instruments and should either be corrected or banned entirely!

I'll think I'll start a class action suit and include trombones, button boxes, accordions, bodhrans, banjos, guitars, and similar discriminatory instruments. I need the names of everyone who uses these things, and I demand that you, Amos, supply it -- either voluntarily or via a subpoena.

Actually, as any veteran guitar player will tell you, it is perfectly easy to play the guitar with one hand, simply by hammering on and pulling off the strings in notes or chords with your left hand only.

By Robert Frost What tree may not the fig be gathered from? The grape may not be gathered from the birch? It's all you know the grape, or know the birch. As a girl gathered from the birch myself Equally with my weight in grapes, one autumn, I ought to know what tree the grape is fruit of. I was born, I suppose, like anyone, And grew to be a little boyish girl My brother could not always leave at home. But that beginning was wiped out in fear The day I swung suspended with the grapes, And was come after like Eurydice And brought down safely from the upper regions; And the life I live now's an extra life I can waste as I please on whom I please. So if you see me celebrate two birthdays, And give myself out of two different ages, One of them five years younger than I look-- One day my brother led me to a glade Where a white birch he knew of stood alone, Wearing a thin head-dress of pointed leaves, And heavy on her heavy hair behind, Against her neck, an ornament of grapes. Grapes, I knew grapes from having seen them last year. One bunch of them, and there began to be Bunches all round me growing in white birches, The way they grew round Leif the Lucky's German; Mostly as much beyond my lifted hands, though, As the moon used to seem when I was younger, And only freely to be had for climbing. My brother did the climbing; and at first Threw me down grapes to miss and scatter And have to hunt for in sweet fern and hardhack; Which gave him some time to himself to eat, But not so much, perhaps, as a boy needed. So then, to make me wholly self-supporting, He climbed still higher and bent the tree to earth And put it in my hands to pick my own grapes. "Here, take a tree-top, I'll get down another. Hold on with all your might when I let go." I said I had the tree. It wasn't true. The opposite was true. The tree had me. The minute it was left with me alone It caught me up as if I were the fish And it the fishpole. So I was translated To loud cries from my brother of "Let go! Don't you know anything, you girl? Let go!" But I, with something of the baby grip Acquired ancestrally in just such trees When wilder mothers than our wildest now Hung babies out on branches by the hands To dry or wash or tan, I don't know which, (You'll have to ask an evolutionist)-- I held on uncomplainingly for life. My brother tried to make me laugh to help me. "What are you doing up there in those grapes? Don't be afraid. A few of them won't hurt you. I mean, they won't pick you if you don't them." Much danger of my picking anything! By that time I was pretty well reduced To a philosophy of hang-and-let-hang. "Now you know how it feels," my brother said, "To be a bunch of fox-grapes, as they call them, That when it thinks it has escaped the fox By growing where it shouldn't--on a birch, Where a fox wouldn't think to look for it-- And if he looked and found it, couldn't reach it-- Just then come you and I to gather it. Only you have the advantage of the grapes In one way: you have one more stem to cling by, And promise more resistance to the picker." One by one I lost off my hat and shoes, And still I clung. I let my head fall back, And shut my eyes against the sun, my ears Against my brother's nonsense; "Drop," he said, "I'll catch you in my arms. It isn't far." (Stated in lengths of him it might not be.) "Drop or I'll shake the tree and shake you down." Grim silence on my part as I sank lower, My small wrists stretching till they showed the banjo strings. "Why, if she isn't serious about it! Hold tight awhile till I think what to do. I'll bend the tree down and let you down by it." I don't know much about the letting down; But once I felt ground with my stocking feet And the world came revolving back to me, I know I looked long at my curled-up fingers, Before I straightened them and brushed the bark off. My brother said: "Don't you weigh anything? Try to weigh something next time, so you won't Be run off with by birch trees into space." It wasn't my not weighing anything So much as my not knowing anything-- My brother had been nearer right before. I had not taken the first step in knowledge; I had not learned to let go with the hands, As still I have not learned to with the heart, And have no wish to with the heart--nor need, That I can see. The mind--is not the heart. I may yet live, as I know others live, To wish in vain to let go with the mind-- Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me That I need learn to let go with the heart.

Happy Day! I just finished the last of four huge projects that are due on or before the 15th. Now I can trip off to Wyoming to a friend's memorial service with peace of conscience. It might not put the "fun" in funeral but at least I won't worry about school obligations.

Hmmm, now I just hope the boys make good decisions. I may not find out for several years what really happens while I'm gone. Rapaire, keep your eye out for a thick plume of smoke off to the west.

Anthony Baggins-Mooresfield Thrumming by the Stones Putney on Half-Shell, 1916

Amos, is that a cousin to Bilbo and Frodo?

Keep up the studies, Eiseley, and maybe your boss will give you a nice big fat raise when you finish your schooling.

Visit went well today. Very well, I think, and though the young'un isn't convinced that Tucson is big enough for the both of us, he'll settle in fine and be okay with occasional parental unit visits. We have friends out here from before when he was born!

Well, it's kind of like playing a guitar with one hand. I can play the trumpet one-handed, but I'll betcha you can't play the guitar one-handed (unless you also use your toes). And if you used your toes wouldn't you leave yourself open to a toe jam session?

I came through the screen door this afternoon, and there was Mom, dancing by herself in the parlor, listening to The McGuire Sisters on the Victrola. I tell you, she dances nice. I tiptoed up to my room during the next turn. She didn't look like she wanted to be interrupted or nothin'.

They pretty near hanged Tiny Little last night. He'd been sent a couple or three "3-7-77" notes and the poem "We're bound to stop this business, or hang you to a man / For we've hemp and hands enough in town to hang the whole damn clan." But he pair no attention.

So the Legion went out to do its unpleasant duty, because Tiny was a dues-paying member and Life Member at that. The Squad found him at his boardinghouse, sucking on a bottle of Old Crow. He knew why they were there and so he'd crawled into the bottle.

Literally. Tiny Little is an elf of the Old School, and the Squad knew that hanging an elf was going to be a mighty tall order. For one thing, the Hangin' Tree branch is some twenty feet off the ground, and hanging someone who's two and half inches tall wouldn't be much of an object lesson to the rest of lawbreakers.

And there was the matter of what rope to use. Normally, well-stretched half-inch hemp was the hands-down winner, but when the guest of honor's hat size is pret' near into the negative numbers it makes it kinda tough.

Well, they stood around the room and debated what to do. Some folks were all for using a piece of cotton string, but it was pointed out that doing that "just warn't in the Code Of The West". And all the time Tiny's inside the bottle making obscene gestures at them, mooning them, and shouting things about their mothers that never got out of the bottle.

Finally, Delightful Doug picked up the bottle and screwed the cap back on. Tiny was surprised -- this had never occurred to him or to the others in the Squad. Delightful used his pocket knife to punch a small air hole in the top and put the bottle, screaming Tiny and all, in his coat pocket and they returned to the Legion Hovel for more palaver about what to do.

Well, the Legion is nothing if not humane, so Tiny now resides in a gallon jug which has holes punched in the lid on the shelf above the bar. Every so often someone shakes the jug a bit to quiet Tiny down and puts a bit of food or water into it. He's been sentenced to "life and a half" and for an elf that's a long time.

But as Delightful Doug and the others decided it was better that Tiny serve time in the jug than they mock The Code Of The West by literally "stringing him up."

If you are my delusion and I am yours, And none can say where it may have first begun, Then ownership is a temporary fiddle An arbitration among One. This choice destroys the young, and serves the crown; To split the world being, and to disown Its halves among each other, brother against brother And never a cry to stop (as the blade comes down) From the understanding heart of a true Mother. Perhaps than, she is within, unable to voice distress Driven by agreement in the parts to be asunder? Oh, wiley heart, to turn to true BS To build once more the whole of Wonder.

Anthony Baggins-MooresfieldThrumming by the Stones Putney on Half-Shell, 1916

I'd been looking for hats, and finally ended up waiting till we got to the museum and buying a couple there. Yes, sunscreen, and do you know, they have sunscreen dispensers in the washrooms, just like you would get soap at the sink. Sunscreen if you need it over next to the door.

The heat does take it out of you, along with the higher elevation sunshine. MOM would turn into a raisin up here in no time without gallons of sunscreen. And did you know, she swears by Noxema on sunburns? If you look under the bathroom sink you'll see she has a gallon jug of it with a pump.

Tomorrow is the big day, the tour on campus and meeting the music professor or one of his students.

Especially the water. Arizona air sucks it out of your pores when you aren't looking.

Mom. we pulled out of Oakland at O-dark-thirty and are now safe and sound, unpacked, car washed, pets regrouped and doing bookkeeping after a week on the road. WHOOSH!! Glad to be home!! Lovely town, Oakland, but there is no place like home...

Yesterday was long but interesting. Today we have to connect with friends and visit the Desert Museum. I love that place, and it will be an immersion in desert environments for the kid who will live here for a while. With sun screen and moisturizer. And saline solution to spritz up the nose.